


My Heart Forsaken Me

by KrysKrossZee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Break Up, F/M, Minor Character Death, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Post-Break Up, Soulmates, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:48:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26662471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KrysKrossZee/pseuds/KrysKrossZee
Summary: After a particularly messy break up, Ron finds himself transported through time where he has apparently been summoned by an ancient spe!l.
Relationships: Ron Weasley/Dorcas Meadowes
Comments: 30
Kudos: 29
Collections: Sing Me a Rare: UK Invasion!





	My Heart Forsaken Me

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sing Me a Rare: The UK Invasion. 
> 
> Song Prompt – Black Horse & A Cherry Tree - KT Tunstall

"What are you humming, Ronald?" Hermione asked, an eyebrow lifting as she set her book down. Ron was all too aware that he was being extra annoying as he packed his suitcase, but honestly, he couldn't care. She'd ripped his heart out of his chest and shredded it into a million pieces when she had rejected him. He'd asked her to marry him and he could still hear her 'no' echoing around inside his head. The only thing that was even partially drowning it out was an incessant tune that he couldn't place. He didn't think that he had ever heard it before but at the same time, it sounded so familiar to him.

"Doesn't matter." He muttered as he all but slammed his suitcase shut. It had been a week since she had rejected him, and they had tried to keep living together, to keep their relationship going, but Hermione had made it clear that she was never going to want to marry him, Ron had to admit that that hurt far too much for him to not be bitter. Stupid emotions. So now he was moving back in with his parents, which was fine except for the fact that he didn't want to live with his parents. He didn't have enough time to find a place of his own though so he didn't really have a choice.

Hermione let out a long-suffering sigh but she didn't say anything else as Ron lifted his suitcase up off of the bed and headed out the door. He sort of wanted her to call after him, to beg him to come back, but he knew that wasn't going to happen as he left their tiny studio flat. He was too upset to apparate just yet and getting the Knight Bus sounded like an even worse idea. He was pretty sure that he was going to throw up at any minute, so walking seemed like the best thing to do.

He didn't know how long he walked for, or even where he was walking to, but his legs were tired and his hand numb from dragging his suitcase behind him when he finally stopped. He didn't really know where he was, and yet this seemed like a very familiar alleyway to him. What's more was that there was a light at the end of the alleyway that almost felt like it was calling his name, not that he could actually hear anything over the tune that was now so much louder inside of his head.

He knew that it wasn't a good idea to walk towards any sort of bright light, but it didn't seem as if he had a choice, not that he would have chosen any differently which was becoming all too clear to him as he walked through the bright light.

The tune seemed to stop as the bright light disappeared and he found himself standing in the middle of the Great Hall. Somehow he had managed to travel hundreds of miles without apparating or using a portkey. He frowned slightly as he looked around him.

He hadn't been back here for a few years, but the school seemed to have changed quite a bit. There was now only one table down the middle of the hall and the ceiling was completely dark - it looked like a castle ceiling rather than mirroring the sky above. Something didn't feel right but he couldn't put his finger on what it was.

"Hello?" He called out, wondering if this was one of Neville's plans to get him to actually go out for a drink with him. They hadn't exactly spent a lot of time together lately, but that was mainly because they were all so busy with their new and shiny adult lives.

"Oh. Hello." A voice he didn't recognise came from behind him. "Where did you come from?"

Ron found this question laughable but somehow he managed to keep his cool and simply turned to face the voice. It belonged to a short blonde woman who looked as though she had just stepped out of a history book. Had Professor Binns finally retired? Could ghosts even retire?

"Some sort of light thing brought me here," Ron told the woman, and it was only then that he realised that he no longer had his suitcase in his hand. He glanced around him only to realise that he must have left it behind in the alleyway.

"A light?" The woman asked before she called over her shoulder "Zar? We've got another one!"

Ron frowned at that. Another one of what? As far as he could see they were the only people around; himself, the short woman and whoever this Zar person was. Before he could ask what she meant, a tall man Ron felt like he recognised strode into the hall. The man raised an eyebrow before he met Ron's gaze.

"Another one from the future?" He asked the woman while Ron became pretty much mesmerised by the amount of silver and green jewellery that he was wearing. Things were starting to fall into place, not that they made a lick of sense to him.

"Seems like it." The woman nodded as she walked a circle around Ron who was just getting more and more confused by the minute. When he had arrived he hadn't been concerned about the where because he had recognised Hogwarts almost instantly, but it did seem that he should probably have been more concerned about the when.

"Uh. Who are you two?" He ended up asking as he tried to figure out what they meant the one called Zar spoke of the future. How could someone be from the future? All the time turners had been destroyed years ago so time travelling was impossible - or at least that was what he had been told on more than one occasion.

"Oh, how silly of me." The woman gave a laugh as she offered him a smile. "I'm Helga and this is Salazar. This is our school and our home, Hogwarts, but I'm guessing you already knew that."

Ron blinked several times. Helga Hufflepuff and Salazar Slytherin? How in the name of Merlin's baggy y-fronts had he managed to meet people who had died hundreds of years before he had been born? Maybe he'd actually fallen and hit his head, and none of this was real? That was the only logical explanation that he could find anyway.

"And how did I get here?" He asked slowly as he looked around himself again. It didn't look like a hallucination - he'd had those in the past after all so he reckoned he could probably tell the difference by now.

" _ Someone  _ has been attempting a soulmate spell," Salazar told him, shooting Helga a glare before he turned his attention back to Ron again. "It appears to have backfired, as I predicted it would, and now we've got soulmates dropping in from all over the place."

A frown fixed itself in place on Ron's lips. That didn't clear anything up and in fact, only made him more confused. He didn't believe in soulmates, especially not since everything with Hermione had gone downhill. Once upon a time, he had believed that she was his soulmate, but that clearly wasn't the case.

"Can you send me back?" He wound up asking. He just wanted to go back to his parents' and eat a bucket load of chocolate ice cream. His heart hurt far too much to be able to put up with all of this nonsense.

"That's the snag," Helga said as if that was the only issue with Ron being dragged backwards through time. "You kind of have to wait here until your soulmate appears."

Ron let out a groan. "Great." He sighed as he looked around himself one more time. He supposed that he could use this time to explore the castle and what it had once looked like but that also sounded like something that Hermione would have enjoyed doing far too much. Instead, he let himself sit down on the bench at the table, deciding that he would just have to play the waiting game.

  
  


**

Dorcas let out a scream as she entered the McKinnon house. She didn't mean to, she had thought that she had been prepared for the possibility that the inhabitants would be dead when no-one had heard from Marlene in a couple of days, but it was one thing to mentally prepare oneself for something and another to actually witness it.

She hadn't actually expected to find one of her closest friends lying in the entranceway of her own house, her wand still in her hand and her eyes staring up at her glazed over. She hadn't actually expected to see Marlene's mother, someone who had looked after her on more than one occasion, fleeing towards the back door. She didn't dare go upstairs for fear of finding Marlene's brother there. It was one thing to find an adult dead but a child was completely different, even thinking about such a thing made her feel sick to her stomach. She'd have to send someone who wasn't so close to the McKinnons in to do the cleanup - there was no way that she could.

She knelt next to her best friend, stroking Marlene's hair out of her face and just about managing to stop herself from bursting into tears. Marlene wasn't the first person that she had lost and she knew that it was more than likely that she wouldn't be the last person that she lost either. Her heart hurt at the thought of it all but she knew that the lives that had been lost were all in aid of their cause, they were all martyrs.

Voldemort was still at large and while that was the case, she and the Order would continue to fight the good fight so that the world might one day become a safer place. It was all for a good cause - but that didn't mean that she had to like it.

She sat there for a while with Marlene's head on her lap and her fingers running through the girl's hair. She didn't want to leave her but she could feel the body getting colder and she knew that was a sign that she should contact the others. She pressed a kiss to Marlene's forehead before she finally managed to pull herself to her feet.

As she walked out into the street, her thoughts were drowned out by a tune that seemed oh-so-familiar, yet she didn't think that she had ever actually heard it before. She didn't have time for her brain to play tricks on her, not today, not when she had jobs that needed doing. But try as she might, Dorcas couldn't get the tune to stop playing.

She rubbed her temples gently as she walked down the street away from the house that she had once thought of as a second home, that now only held the bodies of her second family. The tune, though inside her head, was only getting louder now which would have been worrying had she not been a skilled leglimens.

She wrapped her arms around herself as she walked. She was trying to calm herself down enough so that she couldn't safely apparate back to the others, or maybe even just send a Patronus, but she couldn't seem to do that, at least not with that incessant tune playing on repeat inside her head. It made her jumpy for a start which was not at all helpful in this current climate. She needed to chill out somehow but that seemed to be impossible, so instead, she just walked.

And that was when she saw it, in the park where she and Marlene had often taken the blonde's brother to play before the war. A great big glowing light. None of the muggles who were in the park seemed to notice the light, but that was just like muggles - they didn't notice anything and that was exactly why she strived to look out for them and make the world safe for them. But this light… The tune in her head seemed to get louder as she walked towards it.

All her instincts told her that she should turn and run in the opposite direction, but she didn't. Instead, she walked straight forward - straight into it. She didn't know what she expected to happen but the warm sensation that washed over her like a hug from a loved one or a cup of tea with honey was not it.

She didn't know how long she was inside the light for. It could have been seconds or it could have been years, but she found that she didn't particularly care. The tune in her head was loud enough to drown out all of her logical thoughts and even her worries.

And then there was no more light and no more tune. She was stood in the middle of a cold and draughty hall now, a distinct difference to the unknown place that she had just been, but at least this one felt like it was familiar. She looked around herself as she stuffed her hands into her pockets.

Hogwarts. Was this another of Moody's great ideas that usually made no sense to anyone but him? See a slaughter, get sent to a safe place, maybe? She shook her head slightly as she pulled her wand out, realising now that she needed to at least send a Patronus to let him know that Marlene was dead.

"It won't work." A voice from behind her said. She thought that she recognised that voice but at the same time it wasn't one that she could place.

She spun on her heel to face whoever it was. She hadn't seen anyone when she had looked just moments ago but there was now someone sat at the long table that ran down the middle of the hall.

"What won't work?" She asked slowly, unable to hide the frown that crept its way onto her face. She hated being told what she couldn't and couldn't do in general, but a stranger doing so was even more annoying.

"Sending a message home or whatever." The man told her as he stood up. He reminded her of Fabian and Gideon but as far as she was aware, they didn't have any more brothers.

"And why not?" She asked, just about managing not to cross her arms over her chest as she looked him up and down. It bugged her immensely that he looked so familiar and yet she didn't know who he could be.

"Because, judging by your clothes, they've not even been born yet." The man explained. He was walking closer now and so out of instinct Dorcas kept her wand up. She wasn't going to risk letting him get the upper hand when he was talking like a crazy person.

"You're dressed similar to me." She pointed out. His words didn't make sense at all. How could Moody have not been born yet? Had she somehow time travelled? Impossible.

"I'm not from here either." The man said with a slight shrug as he stopped still, holding up his hands so that she wouldn't hex him - though the temptation to was strong, especially considering what she had just come from.

"I need to get back.." She said slowly, wondering if he knew how she could do that, though she realised that if he was stuck here too then it was unlikely.

"The people that brought us here, they didn't mean to, but they said the only way is to...to meet your soulmate."

A frown creased between Dorcas' eyebrows then. She had never really believed in soulmates, or in love, before. If anyone was her soulmate then it was going to be her best friend whose body was now cold somewhere in the future.

"And how in the name of Merlin's pants are we meant to do that?" She asked with a groan. None of this was making any sense to her whatsoever.

"Might not want to say that too loudly, Merlin could be around here somewhere." The man told her before his eyes met hers properly, locking his gaze onto hers in a way that was only remotely unsettling. There was something about the soft blue of his eyes that felt like it calmed her soul. "As for how we find our soulmates…" He began but trailed off.

Dorcas' eyes widened ever so slightly. Was he really suggesting that  _ he _ was her soulmate? She didn't even know his name! How could they be soulmates? And yet, there was something that drew her to him, and it wasn't just those eyes that washed over her.

"I…" She began but as he took another step towards her, she heard the tune from before in her head again. This time it was louder and felt as if it was completely encompassing her in some sort of cocoon. "Do you hear that?" She asked slowly as she stared at him. She had to know if she had completely lost her mind.

To her surprise, the man started humming the exact same tune that was inside her head. Dorcas couldn't believe it, but yet at the same time, she could. Even though this entire situation made absolutely no sense, it made perfect sense.

"Who are you?" She realised now that that should probably have been a question that she had asked when she first arrived there, but it was only really occurring to her to ask it now. There was no logical order to these things anyway, was there?

"Ron Weasley, and you?" He told her, a small smile on his lips, one that made her heart do a little skip, which under any other circumstances would probably have made her laugh. She wasn't the romantic sort, after all.

"A Weasley?" She asked, her head tilted to the side. That didn't really explain why he looked like the Prewitt brothers when the third Prewitt had  _ married _ a Weasley.

"Yes, a Weasley." Ron's voice was a little terse. She hadn't meant to offend him, but it was clear that was what had happened. "And you're a…?"

"Meadows. My name's Dorcas Meadows." She told him, realising that she should probably be upfront with him now he had told her who he was. His reaction, however, was not what she had expected. His eyes were wide as if she had just told him that she was a death eater or something.

"You're... you're Dorcas Meadows?" He repeated as she frowned slightly, watching him as his expression changed. Her name seemed to mean something to him, and that something didn't appear to be good.

"Yeah…" She said slowly, though all of her worries now were being drowned out by the tune that was once again playing inside her head as Ron took a few steps closer still. She had wanted to ask how he knew her name but as he came within arm's length the words to ask were pushed as far from her lips as possible by the tune.

"I… I don't know what will happen but I have this need to kiss you." Ron's voice was quiet but it managed to break through the noise in her head and suddenly that was the only thing she could hear, and for some reason, it was exactly what she wanted to do as well.

She didn't know what would happen either but as she pressed her lips to his without another thought, she found that she didn't care. Against all odds, despite not even having been looking for one, she had somehow found her soulmate.


End file.
